Top tips on making good investments, avoiding bad buying habits and storing your collection

IF YOU ENJOY WINE, are starting to take more than a passing interest and have perhaps bought the odd reference book about vino varieties, it might be time to think about beginning your very own wine cellar.

The worst habit you can get into is to stop off at your local wine shop once a week and pick up the odd few bottles. A much better approach is to buy by the dozen or a six pack, as most wine merchants will offer a discount on a mixed case. Better still is to select two or three wine merchants, order their catalogs or look online and, when you're in the mood, spend some time selecting your favorite wines and comparing prices. I like to do this on the weekend, with a cup of tea and all the catalogs spread out over the kitchen table.

But a cellar isn't just a few cases of your favorite wine. It may sound like a cliché but a good cellar requires a bit of forethought and planning to provide pleasurable drinking over the long term. I like to break wine collecting into three categories: wines for immediate drinking, wines to lay down that will improve with age, and investment wines—those special bottles whose value will steadily increase year on year.

I started my own cellar soon after I left university and began working in the wine trade. I well remember buying a case of northern Rhône Syrah to lay down—I still have four bottles—and six bottles of a well-known New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc producer. I now buy most of my wine twice a year: during the bin end sales at the beginning of the year, when merchants are unloading old stock at discounted prices, and when a wine is offered En Primeur (wine futures). This is where the wine is put up for sale from the barrel, months before it is bottled and shipped. The advantages are that you can guarantee an allocation of your chosen wine, you can choose the size of the bottle it is shipped in and also secure it at a discounted price. However, the latter isn't always guaranteed—Bordeaux 2010 being a case in point. Many of the wines are cheaper now than when they were when released En Primeur.

The common practice was always to buy three cases of your favorite wine. As the wine went up in value, one case could be sold, the profit of which would pay for the other two. Now wine investment isn't as simple and it's worth consulting an established, trusted wine merchant before buying wine to lay down. The golden rule is that investment wine should never be delivered to your home cellar; it should lay in professional storage, as provenance and storage history are crucial in retaining resale value.

So, after all this, what should you be buying? A good cellar should be a collection of your favorite style of wines, growers and years. The latter requires a bit of understanding and research. A good wine merchant, a specialist magazine or a wine column will tell you which years are better than others.

Within the categories of drinking now, laying down and investment, I would divide any collection into five categories: sparkling, sweet and fortified, full- bodied red to lay down, fruity red for youthful drinking, full-bodied white to lay down, and young fruity wine to consume.

In an ideal world, investment wines pay for future purchases and no category is ever fully depleted, although the latter normally isn't an issue as many collectors I know have more wine than they will ever be able to drink! But a word of warning: Once you catch the collecting bug, it's difficult to shake off.

The Guide // Storing Wine

Your wine's delivered, so time figure out how to store it. Leave investments to the professionals, but the rest can be stored at home using the tips below.

ENLARGE

Jean-Manuel Duvivier

Where to Store Your Wine

A north-facing room is best, so long as it retains a constant temperature, is free from vibration, isn't exposed to direct sunlight and is fairly humid. Below the stairs or in the garage is also suitable, as long as the rooms are well-insulated and aren't too dry. Wines for immediate drinking can be stored in a more accessible place than those that need to be aged. As a rule of thumb opt for the coolest room in the house.

ENLARGE

Jean-Manuel Duvivier

Temperature

This is the most important element in wine storage. Wines should be stored between 10-20°C, with an ideal temperature being between 10-15°C. I have found the constancy of the temperature is more important than the actual temperature, so avoid large fluctuations. A simple maximum/minimum thermometer, hung on the wall, will be able to give an accurate reading.

ENLARGE

Jean-Manuel Duvivier

Humidity

A very dry room can, with time, cause the corks to dry out, which can affect the seal. Too humid, and the labels will start to peel and rot. Buy a cellar hygrometer to check levels. A caution: Apartment blocks tend to be very dry.

ENLARGE

Jean-Manuel Duvivier

Wine Racks

Bottles should be laid down on their side to prevent the corks from drying out. Racks should be positioned away from sunlight and vibration, and should be spaced out enough for easy access. Cellar tags are a good idea as they can hang on the neck of the bottle, avoiding the need to keep pulling bottles from the rack for identification.

Wine Fridges and Bespoke Cellars

If space is a premium and your collection isn't huge, it may be worth investing in a wine refrigerator. They come in all shapes and sizes and can store wine at a constant temperature. For those looking for something a little more permanent, install a spiral cellar either below the floor boards or in back garden. Starting at around £9,500, these watertight cylindrical systems can safely store up to 1,500 bottles.

He lost me at "The worst habit you can get into is to stop off at your local wine shop once a week and pick up the odd few bottles. " That's exactly the way I do it and shame on him for assuming his way of collecting is "the right way". I love finding a new wine in my wine store, wine stores around my office and best of all when I travel. Each bottle creates a unique memory and makes me appreciate it that much more. With thousands of grapes and tens of thousands of vineyards across hundreds of wine regions I rarely buy two of the same bottle. Life is too short to look at wine as merely collecting as many identical bottles as possible. He might as well go to Costco.

Wine collecting and investing is a very expensive hobby. You need a serious amount of capital and education to enjoy yourself let alone make an actual profit. Your almost better off making a profession out of it and incorporating.

At Château Mouton Rothschild some years ago, they went through some of their finest vintages in the cellar. It turned out that about 1/3rd of the vintages prior to 1940 had turned to vinegar. Those that survived were mostly great, but the attrition rate was tremendous.

A long term investment is only good if it retains, or gains in, it's value in purchasing power over time. A Wine cellar is a nice idea. One of my cousin's husband has an extremely nice one. He both saves what he likes for special occasions as well as shares the wines with friends at parties.

As for Napa Valley, I drove through there some 12 years ago. I stopped at a winery & they had a screaming deal on some very nice wine. I purchased a case (& was warned that the wine had been salvaged from a warehouse fire) on speculation. 6 of the bottles were absolutely excellent! The other 6 had gone sour & were fed into home made spaghetti sauce over the next 6 months. All in all, a good, but qualified, buy.

PS. The story about Château Mouton Rothschild is from an article I read some years ago. I can't find a direct reference to it, so please take the details with a grain of salt.

Buying wine as an investment seems a terrible idea especially if you have to pay someone to store it for you and take the risk of a perishable commodity NOT more than tripling in price which is what would need to happen if every investment case is supposed to somehow supposed to pay for two cases you drink. Maybe the author, a professional, can successfully speculate on some of the rarest wines that might do so but that’s not appropriate advice for we mere mortals.

I can’t speak for worldwide, but every winery I visit in Napa says they sell the majority of their wines directly to the customer and secondarily to restaurants, bypassing the retail distribution channel altogether. As antiquated rules on interstate shipment of wine are being relaxed, this is becoming easier every year. For the hardest to get wines, you have to join a wine club to get access to them.

If you’re buying wine to drink and enjoy then shop around until you find a winery and a wine style that you like and buy from them directly.

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